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AGO 77 
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Some 

Educational History of 

Alabama Methodism 



— m— 

AVfl 

Address delivered before the Centenary Celebration 
of the Methodist Church, Wetumpka, Ala- 
bama, Rev. C. S. Talley, Pastor. 
April the thirtieth, 1908 



By William Holcombe Thomas 



Montgomery : 

THE PARAGON PRESS 
1908 



La s 



SOME EDUCATIONAL HISTORY 
OF ALABMA METHODISM 



By William Holcombe Thomas. 



The history of the education of a people is the history 
of its civilization. Its civilization is measured by its in- 
tellectual, moral and religious life. 

The casual observer has marked the intellectual and 
moral evolution of mankind as he progressed from the 
barbaric state. Long did man find himself coming to 
higher ground, not suspecting how he was driven by an 
inner consciousness demanding that his needs be known 
and strength tried in relation to the aggregate experi- 
ence, or by how much he was led on by the faith and hope 
of the ''social mind." Looking back on his progress from 
the hill-tops, he comes the more to realize how the sen- 
sual was subordinated to the intellectual, and how the 
intellectual appealed to and grew into the spiritual. If, 
in the journey of any people, the moral should not be 
the gleam beyond the physical — should not keep apace 
with the intellectual, it is because that people have looked 
too much to the material for hope and let go the faith in 
the spiritual. 

VIEW POINT OF HISTORY. 

Intelligence, virtue and industry give man power over 
himself, and therefore of all things; we must then agree 
with Bishop Spalding in the statement that education 
makes him intelligent, virtuous and industrious. When 
the law of progress is known it will be but the finding 
out the "interdependence of all things ; God revealing him- 
self as his work is unfolded in the mind or heart of man," 



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and in the course of nature. This process of "unity of 
development that is worldwide," is said to have been the 
controlling idea of the nineteenth century. To know any- 
thing, then, is to know how it came to be what it is : to 
know the facts of its process or growth. 

ALABAMA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 

If, then, whatever the view point it is that of history, 
how important does the educational history of our 
Church become ! How it must stir Methodists to renewed 
effort, — how pointing to higher ground, it rolls back the 
limitations of former horizons, if we but wisely trust a 
day's journey and press on! 

Let us then take a bird's-eye-view of the eariler educa- 
tional activities of the Methodists in Alabama, for they 
are but chapters in the history of the Methodist Church 
and a factor in the history of nearly 2,000,000 people. 
From an early date our church has regarded educational 
effort one of the most potent agencies, and to that end 
has given the might of her influence. The recital of the 
story of this phase of Methodist activity in Alabama can 
but be a revelation and an inspiration ; making us proud 
of our educational history and a powerful reason for 
renewed vigor in meeting our new duties in respect to 
educational advancement. 

In May, 1803, one claiming to be a Methodist was 
preaching to the settlers in the Tombigbee and the Ten- 
saw country, and his fidelity for the work and sincerity 
of his claim is attested by the following sentence on page 
164 of Mr. Dow's journal: "A collection was offered me, 
but I did not feel free to accept it; and I left the settle- 
ment, procured some corn and had not a cent left." 

On January 2, 1808, Bishop Asbury at Charleston, S. 
C, called for volunteers to an appointment as a part of the 
Oconee district and Matthew P. Sturdivant volunteered, 
was elected to the eldership as a Bigbee Missionary to a 



-5— 



section of the country 70 or 80 miles along the Tombigbee 
river. The Presiding Elder, Josiah Randle, could hardly 
be expected to have visited Bigbee in his "rounds," nor 
did any other elder of that district cross the wilderness 
to look after the work of faithful Matthew Sturdivant. 
Dr. Lovic Pierce was the Presiding Elder for that dis- 
trict in 1809, and he said, "I did not go; that Los An- 
geles would be a neighborhood place now compared with 
Tombigbee then." 

QUESTION OF SLAVERY THEN RAISED. 

Dr. West, commenting on the early work of the church, 
says that there was not a time from the taking in of the 
first member in 1809 to 1865 that the Methodist Church 
in Alabama did not under her ministry have slaves as 
members of her communion. 

The Tennessee, Mississippi and South Carolina Con- 
ference in 1819 furnished precahers for Alabama, and 
when they were to be sent out they were first found to 
be "satisfactory in their views of slavery;" their views 
were developed at a later date. 

In October (of that year) the Rev. Dudley Hargrove 
became an historic character by being declined election 
by three votes because he held slaves. And a resolution 
was passed by the Tennessee Conference "to fix the prin- 
ciple that no man, even in those States where the law 
does not admit of emancipation, shall be admitted on trial, 
etc. — if it is understood that he is the owner of a slave 
or slaves." A little more than 62 years thereafter his 
son, the Rev. Robert K. Hargrove, was ordained Bishop 
in the City of Nashville, where his father was by the 
Tennessee Conference, refused the order of deacon. 

ALABAMA. 

it may not be out of place, by way of locating geo 



— 6— 

graphic extent, and the settings of early Methodist la- 
bors, to say that the political history of Alabama begun in 
1787 when South Carolina ceded to the United States a 
strip of land about twelve miles wide off the north boun- 
dary of the present State, which, by the act of Congress. 
March 7, 1804, was made a part of the Mississippi terri- 
tory. Then the Mobile District, embracing the territory 
acquired from Spain and France lying east of Pearl 
river, west of the Perdido and south of the 31 degree 
of latitude, was by the act of March 14, 1812, made a 
part of the same territory. Five years later (March 3. 
1817), was approved the act creating the Alabama ter- 
ritory and locating its seat of government at the town 
of St. Stephens. The act for the admission of Alabama 
as a State of the Union upon the same footing with other 
States and providing among other things for the elec- 
tion of "representatives" to form a Constitution to 
"meet at the town of Huntsville on the first Monday in 
June, 1819, was approved on March 3, 1819. This con- 
vention on the 2nd day of August thereafter, formed a 
Constitution and State government in conformity to the 
principles of the articles of compact between the origi- 
nal States and the people and States in the territory 
northwest of the Ohio river, so far as the same had been 
extended to the territory of Alabama by the articles of 
agreement between the United States and the State of 
Georgia. Which action being duly reported to Congress, 
by resolution was approved Dec. 14, 1819, Alabama was 
declared a State of the Union. 

1818-1828. 

December, 1819, Andrew Moore opened a school near 
Brown's Spring, which is now in the City of Birming- 
ham. 

The Montgomery Republican, a newspaper published 
at Montgomery, and afterwards changed in name to the 



Alabama Journal, announced in its issue of February 17, 
1821 : "We are about to begin preparations for erecting 
a place of public worship." In the early part of 1823 
an address was set forth to the people by Dr. Moses 
Andrew, a local preacher of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, at that time living in Montgomery, and 
William Sayre, a Presbyterian, declaring that "Mont- 
gomery is becoming conspicuous for its advantages, and 
is already respectable for its size and population," and 
"there is not a house of worship among us," and setting 
out a document for subscription with sums attached to 
be paid for erecting a house of worship at Montgomery, 
which should be "open to all orthodox ministers," and not 
"being exclusively to any denomination of Christians." 

July 10, 1823, at a citizens' meeting, a framed house 
48 feet long by 24 feet wide for religious worship was 
planned, and in 1825 was completed; and this house and 
the court house were used for passing or visiting preach- 
ers until the latter part of 1829. Of course Montgomery 
was not without casual preaching by those of the different 
denominations. The first preacher doing organized work 
there was a Methodist by the name of James King, who 
organized a Methodist society in 1819, before other de- 
nominations had done so. 

In the "Family Visitor and Telegram," a paper pub- 
lished at Richmond to 1828, is a letter from some Ala- 
bama Missionary as follows: 

"The town of Montgomery, situated on the river Ala- 
bama, in Alabama, contains about 1,200 inhabitants, of 
which five or six only are professors of religion. They 
have a meeting house, which is not yet finished, though 
commenced several years ago. They have no regular 
preaching, sometimes none at all for five or six weeks 
together. The Bible is seldom seen or used by the in- 
habitants, except in courts of justice, where it is used 
by way of business, as if a sight of the holy book would 
operate as a charm to bind the conscience, while its 



—8— 

truths and sanctions are unknown and unheeded. As to 
religion or morality there is little of either in the place. 
These facts are derived from a source on which we may 
rely with confidence. The condition of this town is an 
index of the moral state of many places in the south and 
west, where the people perish because there is no vision." 

I give more in detail this condition in Montgomery 
not to expose the early neglects of my home city, but as 
it may give some idea of the moral status of the country 
at the time when the first academy and college of the 
Methodist Church were respectively located on Monte 
Sano and on LeGrange mountains. The rapid growth of 
the church is evidenced by the fact that when the Ala- 
bama Conference was organized in 1832 there were at 
work in the State about 65 itinerant preachers and about 
1,200 Methodists. 

The Tuscumbia Sunday School Union, auxiliary to the 
Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
was organized in 1828. A meeting held for the purpose 
at Huntsville, April 26, 1828, organized the Huntsville 
Sunday School and the Huntsville Bible Tract Society. 

METHODIST ACADEMIES. 

To the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church at Pittsburg, Pa., May, 1828, was reported an 
academy at that time in course of erection at Tuscaloosa, 
Ala., which was finished September, 1829, and called the 
Sims Female Academy. This antedated by one year the 
academy at Monte Sano (at Huntsville), unfortunately 
we have no prospectus to judge the grade of the work to 
be done there as has been preserved of the Monte Sano 
Academy, the character of which we shall presently 
show. 

FIRST COLLEGE IN ALABAMA. 
The beginning of the work of an advanced education 



— 9- 



in Alabama under the auspices of the Methodist Churcn 
come in the founding of LeGrange College in Franklin 
County, Alabama, on a proposition from the Tennessee 
Conference to the Mississippi Conference, January 10, 
1829. The commissioners to locate the college com- 
mended their selection of site in the following words : 

"The secluded position of the college seems in no small 
degree to sanction the hope that the enticements to dissi- 
pation and idleness, which are too frequently observed 
to assemble themselves in the vicinity of institutions of 
this kind will not dare to exhibit themselves here." 

The college had preparatory department, "Steward 
Hall," dormitories, and a building for a deaf and dumb 
asylum that was not opened for lack of funds. 

Dr. West, commenting on this action of our church, 
says : "In founding a college in Alabama the Methodists 
were in advance of the State, and of all churches, and of 
all denominations of Christians. The first college opened 
and chartered in the State of Alabama was the LaGrange 
College. At the time it opened its halls and went to 
teaching as a college, and at the time it was chartered 
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State 
of Alabama as a college, there was no other school open- 
ed in the State having the grade of a college. 

One would naturally suppose that a college founded by 
a denomination of Christians, and which college was to 
continue under the auspices of such denomination, had 
been founded for giving instruction in Christian doc- 
trines, for inculcating religious tenets, but the founders 
of LaGrange College, extraordinary as it may seem, by 
constitutional provision, as has already been seen, pro- 
hibited the inculcation of religious doctrines at that in- 
stitution, and they commended the inhibition as a meri- 
torious provision, giving to the school a supreme excel- 
lence. Nothing was to be taught but literature and 
science. The founders of that college did not wish to es- 
tablish a theological institution; they were uncompro- 



■10- 



misingly opposed to theological schools, theological de- 
partments and theological chairs. However, it must not 
be inferred that these noble men and women were opposed 
to a school of a religious character and whose influence 
would advance the cause of Christianity. LaGrange Col- 
lege was founded to furnish an institution where the 
youths of the church and the country could be educated 
without hazard to their morals and principles from evil 
associations and false sentiments." 

It was from this college that Bishop Joshua Soule re- 
ceived his degree of doctor of laws July 4, 1850. After 
25 years of varied experience (January, 1855), the doors 
of the college halls on that sublime and consecrated spot 
were closed forever, and the institution was opened at 
Florence, where it took the name of the Florence Wes- 
leyan University. The institution did a great work for 
the generation it touched. 

OTHER EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

The Monte Sano Female Academy was established 
about September, 1830 ; the grade of its work is best told 
in its prospectus as follows: "It is proposed to teach 
in this institution botany, natural and moral philosophy, 
the elements of geography, chemistry and astronomy." 
A year later the Tuscaloosa Tract Society was organized. 

1839 was the centenary year of Methodism and a 
meeting was appointed by official action of the Alabama 
Conference to provide a school of higher education, and 
to collect money from the Methodists at large for that 
purpose. The result of this celebration was the estab- 
lishment of "Centenary Institute" in the neighborhood of 
Valley Creek in Dallas County, that was incorporated 
by act of Legislature, January 2, 1841, and in 1843 under 
Rev. A. H. Mitchell the school opened with between 60 
and 70 pupils of both sexes. The name was changed to 
"Summerfield" in 1845, for it was thought the old name 



—11- 



was not suggestive of a high and healthful locality. This 
institute conferred the degree of doctor of divinity on 
several ministers. 

In the autumn of 1843, by authroity of the Tennessee 
Conference, "Female Institute" of Athens was opened for 
girls under trustees named in the act of incorporation, 
and has long been a center of culture and wide influence, 
and is now under the wise guidance of President Moore, 
doing a good work. 

The Alabama Conference, January, 1849, took the Oak 
Bowery Female Institute under its control; located as it 
was in one of the influential agricultural sections of East 
Alabama, it flourished to the breaking down just after 
the war. May the speaker be permitted to acknowledge 
that he holds the buildings of the "Oak Bowery Female 
Institute" in loving memory, for it was there his mother 
received her education, and there today is to be found 
in the old building an old-time heavy desk, where as a 
small school boy he cut the first two initials of his name. 
May God bless dear old deserted "Oak Bowery school 
house!" 

The Bascom Female Institute was located in 1852 near 
Huntsville in temporary quarters, and did good work 
to the time of its interruption by the Civil War. That 
same year the "Ministerial Education Society" to help 
young preachers to secure an education, where they were 
worthy, was organized. 

During the session of the Alabama Conference at Tus- 
caloosa December, 1853, a communication from the trus- 
tees of a proposed female college at Tuskegee, Ala., was 
received and referred to the committee of education, and 
on Feb. 2, 1854, the act of its incorporation was ap- 
proved. In the beautiful village of Tuskegee, that col- 
lege has now grown, under the management of Dr. John 
Massey, beyond the capacity of its building. When relo- 
cated, as we hope, as the Woman's College at Montgomery, 



—12— 

we bespeak for it a future of which the whole State will 
be proud. 

The Talladega Conference Institute, a female high 
school, was projected by the Conference December, 1854, 
and about that time the Masonic School was given the 
Methodist Conference much encumbered with debt, which 
they were unable to clear, and in 1858 the Conference 
handed the school over to the State of Alabama. Since 
then it has been used as the School of Deaf Mutes and 
Blind. 

In 1856 the Southern University was established at 
Greensboro, (incorporated by the act of the General As- 
sembly of Alabama, January 25, 1856), where it has 
done a noble work, sending untold blessings to the man- 
hood of the State and many into an educated ministry. 

What I have here spoken of the educational efforts of 
our church I believe to be in substance what I said on 
this subject at the recent Alabama Conference, with no 
intention of embarrassing any college or educational in- 
terest of the church. I would not detract from the glory 
of any effort or institution. I would not place an obstacle 
in the path of any prospect. I would only encourage 
every honest endeavor and educational outlook. And in 
all kindness may I say I was then only trying to briefly 
recount the past educational activities of our church 
without offensive contrast and to suggest the possible 
widening horizon of the future, as it may come within 
the vision of the individual member and the church. 

The people at Auburn had originated the memorial to 
the Conference for a college. Being unsuccessful when 
the location was secured for Greensboro, they moved for- 
ward with their plan for a college and just seven days 
after the granting of a charter to the Southern Univer- 
sity the General Assembly of Alabama incorporated the 
"East Alabama Male College," (February 1, 1856.) Be- 
ing surrendered to the State by our church it has be- 



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come the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, one of the 
strongest institutions of learning in the South. 

Tuscaloosa, LaGrange, Summerfield, Athens, Oak Bow- 
ery, Huntsville, Tuskegee, Florence, Greensboro and Au- 
burn were the educational centers in Alabama under the 
auspices of Methodism to the close of the Civil War. Of 
course other influences in the State have fought valiantly 
for the cause of education, but we of the Methodist faith 
may look with no ordinary pride on the part our church 
has taken for an educated citizenship. 

This monograph, as imperfect as it may be, would be 
sadly lacking did I not acknowledge the service of Dr. 
Anson West for his "History of Methodism in Alabama," 
and to say that it was his untiring effort that contributed 
much to the establishment of the North Alabama Con- 
ference College at Owenton, a suburb of Birmingham. 
The Annual Conference in 1906 changed its name to the 
Birmingham College; and under a wise management the 
future hath for it much in store. 

DAWN OF A NEW DAY. 

I trust we have come to the dawn of a new day in the 
educational interests of our church. A casual reader of 
history will see the tendency of our times is to the larger 
centers of interest and influences. If, when the selec- 
tion of a college site was made at Valley Creek, it had 
been New Philadelphia (Montgomery) or that of lonely 
LaGrange mountain had been at Brown's Spring (Bir- 
mingham) who can doubt but that the course of its his- 
tory would have been different. 

If our educational interests are to be consolidated and 
relocated we must have regard for the tendencies of a 
more advanced period and demands differing from those 
of former years. We can but rejoice that the opportunity 
for educational work in the years that are gone were em- 
braced by our church, yet we of this generation must 



—14— 

heed the teachings of history and build our colleges not 
for a locality and a quarter of a century, but for the in- 
terests of the whole church and for a period of more 
than 1,000 years. 

In considering the demands as well of opportunities 
of the future, it will be well to note that in her oration 
before the Congress of Arts and Sciences, President 
Thomas, for the last quarter of a century the President 
of Bryn Mawr College, — urged to a four years' course of 
highest intellectual attainment, and speaking from the 
standpoint of the county at large, said: "Colleges will 
multiply in the future as in the past, and the more there 
are of them the better. It is impossible, and highly un- 
desirable if it were possible, to concentrate the youth of 
our vast country into a few large colleges. Each college 
creates its own supply of students, and two-thirds of the 
students of all our colleges, large and small come from 
within a radius of one hundred miles. As each student 
can, as a rule, attend but one college, each such college 
must be educationally as perfect as possible. ,, 

With an appreciation of the past, may we not at least 
ask of the future a Woman's College that will keep apace 
with the growth of the Church, the State and the demand 
for a higher education ; that will hold to the safe and sane, 
yet give the clever and learned; that while reverencing 
traditions will not allow prejudice to despise duties or 
obscure visions; that will make wifely women of our 
daughters and not send them back manly women; that 
will give them the moral uplift of the wood and field as of 
the Sunday School and prayer meeting; that will give 
them the religion of the playground as of the Church- 
house; that will fill their lives with the large-views and 
still not make drunk with visions of emancipation from 
a sacred motherhood. 



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